Small Moments
Overview: Students will practice descriptive writing by focusing on a small moment from an interesting experience in their lives.
Objectives:
- I can choose a small moment from an interesting experience.
- I can use details to bring my small moment to life.
Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3
Materials:
- One to one devices
- An experience to write about
Lesson Outline:
- Part One: Explain and Model the Activity
- Explain to students that they will be focusing in on a small moment from an experience in their lives. Students can choose any experience they want (a trip to the beach, playing a soccer game, going to the museum, meeting a newborn sibling). The experience can be big or small, but should be interesting with memorable details that the student is excited about sharing.
- Once students have decided on the experience they want to focus on, they should begin to focus on even smaller, important details within that experience.
- If you’d like to show students an example, share how this student wrote about playing in the yard, and their small moment was seeing a snake.
- Consider writing a whole-group mentor Post in front of/with the class to model the thinking and writing strategies. Share the Post to your Class Group and use the ‘Feature’ pin button to pin it to the top of the feed as a reference for students.
- Part Two: Write!
- Provide idea generation time where students write down a list of possible topics or they browse Ideas on Write About. It may be helpful to brainstorm ideas together as a class, as well as checking out this gallery full of small moment Ideas.
- If you want to narrow down their choices, share specific Ideas to their Home page and/or to your Class Group in the “Featured” area. Set a time limit where students need to make a selection by.
- Allow students to write about their small moment in detail for an allotted period of time.
- Monitor progress, provide encouragement and conference with students as needed.
- Part Three: Share and Comment
- Students Publish completed writing to the desired privacy level and select an audience to share with. By sharing to the “Classmates” level and selecting a Class or School Group, their local peers can read and comment.
- If they are proud of their writing and want to share to the global Write About community, they might consider the Storytellers Group to share to.
- Students can leave Comments on Posts from their classmates, offering positive feedback and/or suggestions
Enrichment/Extensions:
- Students can use the audio feature to record their dialogue and even dramatize it! Read/Listen to a student mentor post with dialogue recorded- press the ‘play’ button at the bottom of the Post.
Accommodations:
- Create a custom Idea which uses the Description area to provide step-by-step instructions or links to instructional references (ie skill videos, visual aids, etc) specific to your class needs.
- Use the audio tool to record instructions when creating the Idea. You can read the Idea and Idea Description text out loud so students can listen and replay them as needed.
- Modify the lesson to include small groups and be sure to follow provided personalized accommodations based upon any student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
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